Wanderer
by Lennelle
Summary: Sam's name takes up the centre of the phone's screen. Dean jolts, fully awake now. He looks to the other bed and finds it empty, the sheets heaped and half hanging off the mattress.


Written for this year's ohsam birthday prompt challenge. This prompt is from cowboyguy: "Just stay right there. I'm coming to get you, okay?"

* * *

Dean manages to peel one eye open. It's pitch black in the room with the curtain pull shut tight and Dean feels weighed down in the dark, heavy and sleep-ridden. They've been on the run for a month or so and he's exhausted.

Which begs the question; why the fuck is he awake now?

Ringing. His phone is ringing. The soft blue of his phone screen itches his one open eye and he rolls onto his back, tongue brushing over dried lips. It takes a couple of tries, hand blindly smacking the bedside table, before he manages to grip his cell in sleep-numb fingers.

His brain is still half-dreaming, a few seconds too slow.

Sam's name takes up the centre of the phone's screen. Dean jolts, fully awake now. He looks to the other bed and finds it empty, the sheets heaped and half hanging off the mattress.

The phone is still ringing. Dean answers.

"Sammy? Where are you?"

He can hear something coming from the other end, muffled and crackling. Breaths, in and out, ragged and hitching.

"Sam?" Dean tries again, his heart sinks deeper and deeper in his chest. "Talk to me."

There's some more breathing. Nothing but breathing. Then a clatter like something being dropped or snapped in two.

"Dean?" comes Sam's voice, as if he didn't call Dean in the first place. He sounds worn, his voice a thin layer scraped across too big a surface.

"Sam, where are you?" Dean asks, more slowly this time.

"I – I don't know," Sam croaks. "I can't. I can't see. I'm sorry."

Dean presses his cell between his shoulder and ear, using one hand to flick on the light and the other to tug his boots onto his feet.

"What do you have to be sorry for, huh?" Dean says. "Didn't steal my baby, did you? Because you know I have to kick your ass if that's the case."

"I… I don't know," Sam replies, voice whisper soft, Dean's crappy joke having gone way over his head. He sounds so fragile, like a littler Sam after a nightmare, still frightened and not all the way awake.

Dean stands upright, boots on both feet, and scans the room for his car keys. He finds them in his jacket pocket, draped over the back of a desk chair. "Are you hurt, Sam?" he asks.

"I don't know."

"So, you don't feel any pain?"

"I – I don't think so."

Dean nods, it sounds like that's about all he's going to get. "Sam," he says sharply. "Can you tell me anything about where you are? Can you feel anything, smell anything?"

"It's too dark," Sam says. His voice tightens, wavering fear. "Oh, God."

"Sam, what is it?" Dean asks, his heart is thundering in his chest as he slips out the motel room towards the Impala. He pauses with the key in the ignition, one hand still gripping his cell phone. His fingers are sweating, the plastic case has become slippery. A few moments pass and still no answer.

" _Sam?"_

There's a soft hitch of breath on the other end of the line and then, "I have to go."

"What? Sam, no, don't hang up – "

The line goes dead, Dean's ear is met with a dull and sickening hum. He calls back three times, each met with no answer, just ring after ring after ring, followed by, ' _the person you have called is not available'._

Dean starts the engine, a feral growl cuts through the midnight air, and he pulls out of the motel's parking lot and onto the road. He doesn't know where he needs to go, he dials Sam's number again.

* * *

It's cold and wet. Sam's bare feet are numb. He can barely see anything but the faint dark shape of his legs moving beneath him. His phone is clutched so tightly in his hand that the plastic casing might crack. He treads softly, hesitantly, all too aware that he's not the only one here. Wherever here is.

Something took him. Maybe. He doesn't remember. He remembers going to sleep in a two-star motel bed, scratchy sheets and a rock-hard pillow, and waking up… here. Wherever here is.

There's a _crack_. Sam freezes, not daring to breathe, he clamps his teeth together. The quiet is pierced by the ring off his cell phone. Sam fumbles, eyes adjusting to the glow of the screen, and hangs up on the call.

It's too late. It heard. The darkness is infected with white light, too bright to be anything of this world. Sam runs.

* * *

Dean wishes Bobby were still here. He wishes, he wishes, he wishes. Wishes never did him much good, neither did prayers. He can't call for Castiel to come and fix this mess. He wishes he could resurrect the bastard just to kick his ass. He'd probably hug him after, and then give him another ass kicking.

Dean thinks maybe this apocalypse is worse than the last one. At least last time they weren't alone.

The Impala prowls slowly down the town's back alleys, through shadows and under streetlights. He points his flashlight under every crevice. He'll turn over every rock in this place until he finds Sam.

He decides to circle the outskirts again. It's been an hour since that first phone call, an hour in which anything could have happened. This would be so much simpler if he could just track Sam's phone, but Frank Devereaux was good at what he did, even Dean can't find Sam. Fuck Frank, honestly.

Dean's cell goes off and he picks up before the second ring.

"Sammy?"

"Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me. Want to tell me where you are?"

"I – I don't know…" Sam whispers, he trails off into a sob. "Dean. _Dean_ , I think – I think I'm back there."

One handed, Dean pulls the Impala onto the curb. He takes a steady breath and asks, "Back where, Sam?"

"The cage," Sam manages through stuttered breaths. "I'm back."

Dean shakes his head. "No, Sam, you're not. Listen to me, okay?"

"He's here," Sam goes on, not listening. "I can _feel_ him, Dean. He's here with me."

"Sam!" Dean snaps and Sam gasps on the other end of the call. "Sam, you're not in the cage. How would you get there, huh? How would you be talking to me on the phone? You really think they've got cell service in hell?"

Sam's quiet for a moment and Dean listens to his heavy breaths. He thinks maybe he's gotten through to Sam, but Sam says, "None of it was real. This isn't real."

Shit. Dean guides the car back onto the road. "Sam, listen to me. I'm real. Now, feel around you, what's there?"

"There's nothing," Sam whispers. "It's so dark."

"Come on, Sam. Sounds, smells, anything. What's there?"

"I, uh, I have to go."

"No. Just stay right there. I'm coming to get you."

He's answered with the dial tone.

* * *

"You really thought you got out?" Lucifer chuckles in the dark, his voice comes from every direction, cornering Sam. "That's just adorable."

Is it selfish that Sam wishes it were true? That he's free, even if Bobby and Castiel are gone.

"Very selfish," Lucifer agrees. "That's a sin, you know. Greed, isn't it?"

Sam doesn't dare answer, he doesn't dare move a muscle. He wishes he could speak to Dean again.

"He's not coming for you. He never will."

Lucifer's voice rings in Sam's ears.

Divine, piercing, deafening.

Sam runs. He can feel the skin on the soles of his feet scrape and split on the ragged surface. It's dark, too dark. The only light is high up ahead, a dim spotlight over this blackened world. Claws scratch his face, rake over his cheeks, he feels a bead of something warm and wet dribble across his skin.

He slips and falls onto his knees with a heavy thud. He loses his grip on his phone and it skitters away into the shadows.

He can hear footsteps crunching, getting louder and louder.

His phone lights up, a bright spot a couple of feet away, and sings. Sam clambers on his hands and knees, the wet ground slippery, and he crawls towards it.

Something claps his shoulder in a tight grip, Sam cries out as he's flipped onto his back.

"Hey! Sam, it's me!"

Sam blinks at the figure above him. A torchlight shifts to reveal Dean's rain-spattered and worried face. He crouches down and tugs Sam to sit upright. The curtain is gently pulled back. Not black nothingness, but a crowded forest under a midnight sky. Not feral growls, but cars hurrying by on a nearby road.

"Had you going, though," Lucifer says, leaning against a tree trunk. "You should have seen yourself. Full-on, wacked-out crazy!"

"Sammy, you with me?" Dean asks. He's still gripping Sam's shoulder, iron-tight. Sam nods, gaze flitting about, still absorbing every inch of reality. His fingers brush over the scar on his left palm and he digs his fingernail into the knotted flesh. The devil flickers out of sight like a blown-out match.

"Come on, let's get you back inside," Dean says, tugging Sam upwards. Sam gets to his feet, instantly wincing at the pressure on the tender flesh. Dean swings the torch up and down Sam, grimacing. "We need to get you cleaned up," he says.

It's uncomfortable walking back to the car, over rocky terrain on open wounds, but on Sam's pain scale it barely reaches one. Sam's felt worse. So much worse. Dean's grip hasn't lessened, he holds onto Sam like he might drop back to the ground if he lets go.

"I'm sorry," Sam feels the need to say.

"Not your fault."

True, but Dean's still the one who has to pick up after Sam. He's the one who has to patch him back together again. He's the one who has to deal with Sam disappearing into a bout of psychosis on a weekly basis.

"How – how'd you find me?" Sam asks, shuddering. Jesus, it's freezing. He squints down at himself, he's wearing nothing but an old t-shirt and sweatpants.

"I'm a hunter, dude, I hunted you down," Dean says, and the comment makes Sam wince. With a sigh, Dean clarifies, "I was running around town for an hour and a half, but it turns out you'd just wandered behind the motel."

Sam can see the pink walls of the motel taking shape between the trees, the car parked haphazardly at the edge of the woods.

They're quiet the rest of the way, across the road, through the parking lot, into their room. Sam lets Dean guide him to the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub.

The white tiles are stained bloody by Sam's feet. Dean turns on the water, the steam warms Sam's back.

"Maybe," Sam says, pauses, tries again, "Maybe we should think about… doing something. About me."

"What?" Dean presses, dabbing Sam's sliced feet with a towel.

"Maybe you should check me in somewhere. A hospital or something."

"No," Dean is quick to answer.

"We can't keep doing this. _I_ can't keep doing this."

"We're managing."

"I'm not even sure you're really here. I don't know for sure any of this is real."

"Then why talk about hospitals?" Dean asks. "If none of this is real, then why does that matter."

Sam sighs. He's exhausted, his shoulders droop, his head droops, his heart droops. "Real or not, I can't keep dragging you down."

Dean stands up and tosses the bloody towel in the sink, he leans over and turns off the water. "Don't be an idiot, Sam."

A smile forces its way onto Sam's lips.

"I mean it," Dean says. "It's my job to look after you. I'm not just gonna hand you off to someone else. I'm not gonna let them lock you up and pump you with pills."

"Shouldn't this be my choice?"

"You're not in your right mind, you don't get a choice. My answer is still no. Get in the bath."

Sam does as he's told, too tired to be bothered about privacy. Too tired to bitch at Dean for bathing him like a toddler. He sits in the tub, water tinging pink and grey with blood and mud, and he focuses on breathing beneath the slather of the wet sponge Dean drags across his back.

"We'll find a way," Dean says, washing dirt from Sam's hair with his other hand. "I'll find a way to fix this, make you better."

Sam wishes he could believe him.

The Devil in the mirror smiles down at him, another blows bubble under the water. Another Dean watches from the doorway.

"You left the cage," the other Dean says, "but did the cage leave you?"

"It's in me, and I left a bit of myself behind," Sam answers, matter-of-factly, and the Dean scrubbing grime from his hands doesn't say a word.

* * *

Hopefully, I can fill another prompt or two. I'm also in the middle of writing a big bang which will be posting around September. Comments are always appreciated!


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